While most museums protect their collections under glass, vintage computers and other electronics at Living Computers: Museum + Labs were open for visitors to play, code and learn.
Last week, it was confirmed that the South Seattle museum that housed Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen’s collection of vintage computers and internet technology would be closing its doors permanently and that at least some of its items would be auctioned off.
The museum closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
Located in a beige, industrial-looking building on First Avenue South, the museum opened in 2012 and was known for its hands-on exhibits. Allen, an avid collector and philanthropist whose lifelong work also led to the creation or support of Seattle institutions like the Museum of Pop Culture and Cinerama, died in 2018 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma . He announced in 2010 his intention to donate the majority of his fortune by signing the Giving Pledge, and part of his estate has since been sold at auction.
Rich Alderson, a former senior engineer at the museum, worked closely with Allen and looked after his private collection of computers and mainframes at Allen’s company, Vulcan.
Alderson was one of the first to get involved in the project that eventually became the museum. Before the museum was founded, Allen had a website called PDPplanet.com that showcased his collection of Digital Equipment Corporation mainframes and minicomputers. Allen contacted Alderson and his colleagues and asked if they thought people would come and visit a physical museum of the collection.
“We started exploring this question and in 2008 we renamed the website Livingcomputers.org and started transforming his private collection into something that could be displayed in a museum, that people could come in and touch and use,” Alderson said.
The museum opened in October 2012, with tables of vintage computers ready for use, and continued to expand over the next eight years.
In 2016, the museum added a second floor devoted to new technologies, including virtual reality, self-driving cars, robotics, and computer-generated art and music. The museum has also added educational laboratories as well as temporary exhibitions.
Exhibition designer Margaret Middleton created one such experience in 2017 for the museum. Their temporary exhibit, “Barbie Gets With the Program,” told the story of women in computing from the 1960s to today, using toy computers designed for Barbie dolls and the real machines they were based on.
Middleton wrote in an email to The Seattle Times that the archive was a celebration of femininity, women and computer engineering, and that Living Computers: Museum + Labs honors that vision.
“The LCM is the only museum I have worked for that not only allowed visitors to use the objects in the collection, but encouraged them to do so, which was a real show of trust in the museum’s visitors, that the collection was really for them,” Middleton wrote. “I am sad to see the museum close – it was such an inspiring model.”
Alderson shares similar sentiments about the closure. He continued to work at the museum until 2020, when it closed due to the pandemic. Alderson said the institution had originally planned to reopen at a later date, but that didn’t happen.
“As of June 1, 2020, all engineers except the engineering manager have been laid off. The archivist stayed on for about a year, just completing documentation and other tasks, and then she was let go,” Alderson said.
Museum staff were initially asked to plan for a 12- to 18-month closure, which Alderson said would turn into a two- to three-year closure.
“The heartbreaking thing is that the museum will never reopen,” he said.
It’s not yet clear how many of the museum’s items will be up for auction. But it’s confirmed that one of the vintage pieces of computer equipment up for sale is the museum’s 1971 DEC PDP-10:KI-10 computer, a type of computer on which Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates honed their programming skills.
Alderson remembers working with Allen and the late technical director Robert Michaels on this computer in the museum space before its official opening.
“Paul used to show up sometimes, because he could. He came in at 5 o’clock one night when I was debugging things, and he came and sat down, and the three of us were there until about 9 o’clock,” Alderson said. “He ordered a pizza and we had a good time debugging.”
Alderson said he wasn’t sure what Allen would think about the museum closing.
“It was always one of his happy moments,” Alderson said. “It’s hard to say how he would react. »
Upcoming auction
There are three upcoming Christie’s Americas auctions of items from Allen’s estate, ranging from computer equipment to historical documents.. According to a press release, the auction will take place this fall and will focus on a variety of topics:
- Premieres: The History of Computing, an online sale closing on September 12
- Pushing the Boundaries: Ingenuity, a Live Auction on September 10
- Over the Horizon: Art of the Future, an online sale that closed on September 12.
Among the items up for sale are Allen’s interests in technology, space exploration and art, such as a signed letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Gemini spacesuit owned by Ed White and Chesley Bonestell’s painting, “Saturn as Seen from Titan.”
Auction house Christie’s has previously handled auctions of Allen’s items, including a 2022 auction that was the most successful single-owner art auction in the world, raising $1.62 billion.
Marc Porter, president of Christie’s Americas, said in an interview with The Times that auctions like these allow people to get a glimpse into the mind of a public figure through their possessions, while also honoring their wishes after his death, like Allen’s philanthropic efforts.
“A lot of the auctions we do are philanthropic in nature, and those are some of our best sales,” Porter said. “Honoring the legacy of collectors and the collections that come to us is what we love to do, and I think it’s what we do best.”
Asked about the decision to close the museum and the future of its artifacts, a representative for the Vale Group, Allen’s company formerly known as Vulcan, wrote in a statement to the Times that the auction of part of Allen’s estate honors the founder’s wishes after death. .
“Paul anticipated that things would change after his death and, as we have previously stated, he devoted most of his fortune to philanthropy,” the statement said. “All estate administration efforts, including the Gen One auction with proceeds to be directed to philanthropy, are consistent with Paul’s wishes, his estate plan and fiduciary principles. »
The statement did not specify to which charities the profits would be donated.
According to the Vale Group, some of the museum’s programs were acquired by the nonprofit SDF.org, including the museum’s remote emulated systems. Emulated systems are vintage models of computers and operating systems that allow the user to run programs as if their device were the machine itself.
Christie’s website currently lists only four items in its auction preview, and no full catalogue has been announced. A link on Christie’s website allows you to sign up for email updates.
It is unclear what will happen to the museum’s other items, including previously donated objects and devices.
In an email to the Times, Gordon Steemson, a member of the Seattle Retro-Computing Society, wrote that other members are concerned about the future of the items they donated and whether they will be sold at auction, leading people to try to contact the museum since last week’s announcement.
“At least one of our members is trying to get the item he donated back for this very reason – no response from the board yet, but it’s only been a short while,” Steemson wrote.